In a note issued late Friday, Samsung denied that there is an issue. It claimed that “severe external damage” is responsible for some incidents:

Samsung stands behind the quality and safety of the Galaxy S7 family. There have been no confirmed cases of internal battery failures with these devices among the more than 10 million devices being used by consumers in the United States; however, we have confirmed a number of instances caused by severe external damage. Until Samsung is able to obtain and examine any device, it is impossible to determine the true cause of any incident.

The Note 7 crisis saw Samsung’s profit plunge 30 percent year-on-year, so the Korean tech giant can ill afford a reprisal of these issues right slap bang in the Christmas shopping period. Now that Samsung has addressed these reports, we’re likely to find out soon whether there’s anything more to them than just a handful of unfortunate incidents here and there.